‘Peacemaker’: release date, trailer and everything we know about the HBO Max original series

Peacemaker
John Cena in 'Peacemaker' (Image credit: HBO Max)

If you watched this summer’s The Suicide Squad and stayed through the credits (as superheroes movies have trained us all to do at this point), you saw the scene where two of Amanda Waller’s staffers head to the hospital to check in on a still comatose Peacemaker, as they annoyingly acknowledge that they are going to be working with him to save the world.

This officially set up a Peacemaker spinoff series, though it wasn’t any revelation for DC fans. The fact that HBO Max was going to have a Peacemaker original series had been announced well before The Suicide Squad hit screens, with James Gunn, the writer/director of The Suicide Squad, performing the same duty on this new series.

However, more information about Peacemaker is coming out, and we’ve compiled it all for you right here. So read on to find out everything you need to know about HBO Max’s Peacemaker.

What is the plot of ‘Peacemaker’?

Quick spoiler warning if you have not seen The Suicide Squad yet.

We meet Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad, as he is part of the team of bad guys put together by Amanda Waller and tasked with saving the world from an alien threat on an island nation led by a dictator in exchange for time off their prison sentence. However Peacemaker has an additional mission, to retrieve incriminating footage against the U.S. government, which ultimately puts him at odds with the other members of the squad. He gets into a shootout with Idris Elba’s Bloodsport, gets shot in the head and goes into a coma, where again two of Waller’s staffers find him at the end of the film, begrudgingly waiting for him to wake up.

The series will go more into Peacemaker’s origins and what makes him tick, while also following him as he and his reluctant team try and achieve peace, no matter how many people he has to kill to get it.

Who is in the ‘Peacemaker’ cast?

The man underneath the chrome helmet is John Cena, reprising his role from The Suicide Squad. Wrestler-turned-actor Cena has been building his star power in recent years, starring in both action and comedy films like Blockers, Bumblebee and of course this past summer’s F9. He gets to combine the two with his role as Peacemaker.

Joining Cena in the series will be fellow The Suicide Squad alum Steve Agee and Jennifer Holland, who play John Economos and Emilia Harcourt, the two staffers that were assigned to work with Peacemaker. Also part of the team is Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black, Clemency, Close Enough), who will play Leota Adebayo, and Freddie Stroma (Bridgerton) as Vigilante/Adrian Chase.

Other members of the cast include Christopher Heyerdahl as Captain Locke; Chukwudi Iwuji as Clemson Murn; Nhut Le as Judomaster; Lochlyn Munro as Larry Fitzgibbon; Annie Chang as Sophie Song; Alison Araya as Amber; and Robert Patrick as Auggie Smith, Peacemaker’s father.

Who is James Gunn?

Most superhero fans will be familiar with James Gunn, as in addition to The Suicide Squad he is the writer/director of all three of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

With Peacemaker, he wrote all eight episodes of the first season in addition to directing seven of them; Brad Anderson directed the other.

When is the ‘Peacemaker’ release date?

Peacemaker has officially debuted on HBO Max, with the first three episodes released on Jan. 13. Moving forward, one new episode of Peacemaker will debut every week on the streaming service until its season 1 finale on Feb. 17.

Is there a ‘Peacemaker’ trailer?

Fans got to see the first teaser trailer for Peacemaker during the recent DC Fandome event. In it we meet the team that Peacemaker will be working with and get a sense of some of the insecurities that the superhero is dealing with, including having believed that he was a “butt baby” for many years. Watch it for yourself below. 

HBO Max has also released a red-band trailer for the show, which you can watch right here.

How to watch ‘Peacemaker’

Peacemaker is an HBO Max original series, meaning that you will need to be a subscriber to the streaming service in order to watch it. Thankfully, once you are signed up, HBO Max can be watched on most devices, including your TV, computer, tablet or phone. 

As far as signing up, there are two options available: the $9.99 per month ad-supported plan and the $14.99 per month ad-free plan. While there are some additional differences between the two plans, you will be able to watch Peacemaker, or any other HBO Max original series, with either.

Michael Balderston

Michael Balderston is a DC-based entertainment and assistant managing editor for What to Watch, who has previously written about the TV and movies with TV Technology, Awards Circuit and regional publications. Spending most of his time watching new movies at the theater or classics on TCM, some of Michael's favorite movies include Casablanca, Moulin Rouge!, Silence of the Lambs, Children of Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Star Wars. On the TV side he enjoys Only Murders in the Building, Yellowstone, The Boys, Game of Thrones and is always up for a Seinfeld rerun. Follow on Letterboxd.